


'tis the damn season

by dameofpowellestate



Series: it always leads to you, in my hometown [1]
Category: Schitt's Creek
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Childhood Friends, Angst with a Happy Ending, Based on a Taylor Swift Song, M/M, Recreational Drug Use, Reunions, angst but festive and light, just a little weed, smut but make it pretty?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-14
Updated: 2020-12-14
Packaged: 2021-03-10 17:48:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,004
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28061181
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dameofpowellestate/pseuds/dameofpowellestate
Summary: He’s not sure why this year he’s so determined to avoid one of his favorite parts of Christmas, because truly nothing gets him in the spirit quicker. But he supposes he’s maybe still a little hung up after last year...This year feels a bit precarious… feels like if he puts a toe out of line he’s going to beg to be asked to stay. So this year he’s gonna keep it in his pants.Or, David returns to his hometown for Christmas and falls back once again into the arms of the man he keeps leaving behind.
Relationships: Patrick Brewer/David Rose, Stevie Budd & David Rose, Stevie Budd/Twyla Sands
Series: it always leads to you, in my hometown [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2085156
Comments: 83
Kudos: 252





	'tis the damn season

**Author's Note:**

> _'tis the damn season, write this down  
>  i'm stayin' at my parents' house  
> and the road not taken looks real good now  
> and it always leads to you and my hometown_

He’s determined not to repeat history, though it may be a bit more of an annual tradition than history. But he’s determined nonetheless to avoid falling under the spell of a certain puppy-eyed small town Canadian boy for the countless year in a row. 

There’s just, there’s something about being back in the place where they grew up. Coming back to visit his parents and traipsing around town with Stevie makes him feel like he _fits_ here in that boy's arms. 

Nearly every nook and cranny of this town holds a piece of their past. It’s inescapable. 

He’s not sure why this year he’s so determined to avoid one of his favorite parts of Christmas, because truly nothing gets him in the spirit quicker. But he supposes he’s maybe still a little hung up after last year.

They’d both lingered a little longer than normal, took a little extra time before David left for the airport to _connect_ one last time _._ They had held on a little tighter. Big, loud eyes had spoken a few too many things. Hell, David almost stayed until New Years after that… thought about coming Easter weekend because he’d still not gotten that last kiss out of his head.

This year feels a bit precarious… feels like if he puts a toe out of line he’s going to beg to be asked to stay. So this year he’s gonna keep it in his pants.

He’s successful until he and Stevie are perched on the top of the bleachers at Schitt’s Creek High School passing a joint back and forth like they used to do _under_ these same bleaches when he spots him. 

Patrick fucking Brewer. 

Captain of the high school baseball team turned business manager and part-time baseball coach. 

Patrick Brewer who broke up with his childhood sweetheart after he’d gotten stuck in a closet playing 7 minutes in heaven with David and then immediately came right _out_ of the closet… literally and figuratively. 

Patrick Brewer who offered to go to New York City with David all those years ago. Patrick who’d had his heart broken when David refused, broke up with Patrick to pursue a life he’d always dreamt of having. One full of glamour, drinks and drugs, art, _people._ A life that ended up, in the long run, only being deeply disappointing. 

Stevie elbows him and blows her smoke in David’s direction with a knowing smirk on her face.

He’s jogging towards them across the field, his dad’s old truck sitting in the parking lot just teasing him with memories of rushed handjobs in the bed. He’s got a fleece-lined jean jacket over his flannel and a completely useless toque on his head that isn’t even pulled over his ears. 

As he starts climbing up towards them David can in fact see his ears and nose are bright red from the cold. His hair is longer this Christmas, his unruly curls sticking out in all directions from being squished under that bright blue toque. 

David thinks about simultaneously warming his face up with kisses, his warm breath on those ears, sinking his fingers in that mop of hair.

He takes a drag from the joint Stevie must have slipped through his gloved fingers while he was busy watching Patrick Brewer, and something warm and dangerously close to fond settles in the pit of his stomach and he’ll refuse to admit it’s anything but the weed until he’s safely away from these two. 

“Hey, I thought I saw you two,” Patrick says, throwing one leg over the bench in front of them and sitting down, the straddle doing nothing but make his jean-clad thighs look delicious.

_David is so fucked._

“Well you should’ve known we’d be here, this close to Christmas? Have to do something to take the edge off spending this much time with our families,” Stevie says with a grin.

Patrick just chuckles and extends his hand towards David and for one glorious moment he thinks they’re going to skip all the preamble, all the teasing and playing with temptation and get straight to it until David realizes he’s still holding the joint.

He passes it off and watches Patrick’s lips wrap around Stevie’s terrible excuse of a tightly rolled joint and inhale.

“Really letting that freak flag fly after Ken then, huh?” Stevie says when he passes it off to her.

“Ken?” David finally says, able to get his mouth to form words through the haze of the weed and the intoxication of Patrick. 

“Uh yeah, I was seeing this guy for a few months and he wasn’t a fan of well, much of anything to be honest,” he says with a shrug, pulling his hat off and wringing it nervously in his hands. His curls seem to magically bounce back to life as if they have a mind of their own and are on a mission to make David lose the feeling in his knee caps.

His eyes cut to Stevie’s, immediately wondering why the hell she hadn’t mentioned Patrick was dating anyone during one of their _many_ weekly FaceTime calls.

“Well Brewer, I don’t know how to break it to you but his shoes were a dead giveaway.”

“Oh god yeah, you would have hated them David,” he says with a laugh, “they were pointy but–”

“Squared-off at the toe? Patrick, you should know better by now,” he says, kicking his own shoe into Patrick’s calf lightly.

Patrick does look a little embarrassed about accepting such a fashion _faux pas_ and shrugs, his too loud eyes searching David’s face for what, David’s not sure, but he _is_ sure he isn’t ready to know. 

“Hey, you guys are coming tonight right? Are you and your mom going to perform The Number?” 

Stevie stifles a laugh and passes the joint back to David. 

“When have we ever missed the Schitt’s Creek Annual Christmas Spectacular?” David says, taking another hit and passing it back to Patrick. 

Patrick grins, a sparklingly wide and goofy thing on his handsome face. “Good! Good, you know I look forward to your straightened hair every year David.”

“ _Okay_ , that’s… it’s…”

“Tradition. I know a thing or two about those,” he says, placing the joint between his lips and his eyes light up much like the tip of the blunt in his mouth. 

“Mmm,” David agrees and swallows roughly, wondering if Patrick also thinks of taking David’s dick as a jolly Christmas tradition. 

“So I’ll save you guys a seat? Alexis too?” He asks standing, placing his toque carelessly back atop his curls. 

“Oh Stevie will be sitting with _Twyla,_ ” David says quickly before Stevie can get the chance. Stevie kicks a foot at him but narrowly misses his shin.

“Oh good, I’ve got money riding on the two of you having some type of PDA incident before the New Year. Think you could do me a solid? I’d love to beat Ronnie,” Patrick teases.

“What!?” Stevie squeaks, tossing the minuscule remnants of their joint over her shoulder. 

“I do have to run though. I’m picking up a truckload of poinsettias for Jocelyn. Apparently Roland’s thrown his back out. I’ll see you later? We’ll catch up?” He says, his eyes seeking out David’s. 

David nods and feels an urge to pull Patrick close and notices Patrick’s small sway toward him too. It’s ridiculous, this pull he still feels, that they both still feel all these years later.

He supposes the Yuletide Hookups probably don’t help much. 

“Go, I’ll find you later,” David says, waving him off.

Patrick shoots him one his trademark not-quite-winks and takes off towards the truck at a run. He always has been a rather adventurous stoner. 

“So I take it you’ll be busy for the rest of your stay?” Stevie snarks as soon as Patrick drives off. 

"I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he says folding his chin down into the scarf tied around his neck, his eyes still following the truck as it pulls out onto the Main Street that runs through town. The only street that runs through town.

“Why don’t you just…” Stevie starts and then stops.

“Just what?”

Stevie lets out a sigh, her breath a cloud of annoyance between them. “He broke up with Ken a month ago.”

“And?”

“He broke up with Ken a month ago after your mother started talking about your flight information one morning at the café.”

“ _Oh_ ,” he says on an exhale. He’d like to excuse it, say that surely those shoes must’ve put the last nail in the coffin but well, he’d done the same thing four years ago. He’d been seeing Whitney for a few weeks but as soon as he’d bought his plane ticket home he’d dumped her via text an hour later.

“He still… feels whatever way he felt about you all those years ago when you were a complete idiot and left him here,” she says, clearly fighting every instinct inside herself to have this much of a sincere conversation.

“So I’m just saying… if you wanted to move back here you could have–”

“Move back to Schitt’s Creek and what, Stevie? Open up an art gallery in the podunk town where the closest thing to art is that weird bit of discolored concrete outside Bob’s Garage? You know how long I dreamt of getting out of here!” He says, his head popping out of his scarf and turning to fully look at his best friend.

“Yeah I know, ever since you moved here when you were 13. It was like some kind of vendetta against the world for taking away your fortune, I get it but David… you _hate_ it there,” she says, sliding closer to him and linking her arm through his. 

They never say it, not really… how much they miss each other. They don’t have to though, they both know. Both fully aware that even after all these years neither one of them has found anything close to whatever kindred spirit the two of them share.

“I don’t hate it,” he murmurs petulantly. 

“Well you can move back here and have Patrick, a dog, a white picket fence and whatever the hell else it is people in love dream up,” she says standing and pulling David to his feet.

“We both know I’m more of a cat person,” he replies and he knows he doesn’t have to explain. 

********

The Annual Schitt’s Creek Christmas Spectacular has really outdone itself this year. The stage they perform on seems to be a permanent addition to Town Hall instead of the removable one they’ve used for years, though last year there was an alarming soft spot right in the middle and he’d almost toppled over during their not so silent rendition of _Silent Night._

The stage is also packed full of poinsettias and the gleam in Patrick’s eye from the audience is enough to tell him that was definitely on purpose as the rest of town hall is only adequately decked in the red flowers. 

After that the crowd files outside to take in the decorations around the town square. Every storefront is decorated with a different theme except the general store which seems to have gone out of business. 

David takes a moment to change into his latest online bargain, though he’d never admit that detail, a beautiful Neil Barret lightning bolt sweater, and tosses a simple black toque over his straight hair. 

Patrick’s waiting for him, two cups of hot chocolate in hand, when he steps out of Town Hall. 

“Hi,” he says softly, barely a whisper as he takes in Patrick’s shy smile and hopeful eyes. He’s changed from earlier too, a terribly ugly Christmas sweater replacing the cozy flannel and a nicer winter coat in place of the jean jacket. 

He looks _good._

He looks like _home._

“You guys changed up the _Jingle Bells_ arrangement this year,” Patrick says, passing David a hot chocolate, the thin cardboard cup warming his hands even through his gloves. 

“Yeah, the act was due for a bit of a refresh,” he says as they take off after the crowd that’s halfway down the street already. 

“But you still straightened your hair even though that went out of style fifteen years ago?” Patrick’s asks innocently, a hint of a smirk all that belies his teasing. 

“I seem to recall you liking it. You always find an excuse to get your hands in it, in an attempt to _fix_ it right?” He says as he remembers last year, Patrick ambushing him in the dressing room, his hair decidedly anything but flat when they finally joined the rest of the town for the festivities. 

“Oh I like it David,” he says and every hint of innocence is gone now and when David glances over there’s not a hint of a playful grin either… just pure determination. 

“I uh…” he says but stops to laugh at himself for evening _thinking_ of admitting this, “I’ve kept this part of the costume because of your reaction the first time I did it.”

“David! That was eons ago, we hadn’t even… I was still dating Rachel!”

“Yeah but you… you spent all night staring at it. At me. I liked that,” he says with a shrug, taking a sip from his cup in an attempt to hide anything that might be written all over his face.

“Jesus David, I’ve done nothing but stare at you since you moved here,” he admits softly, as if David didn’t already know that. 

And for just a moment David thinks this is too much, the ache in his chest and the tightening in his throat at the thought that he’d _left_ this. Left Patrick. That he still doesn’t allow himself to stay, to have this… he thinks about turning right around and marching home before he does something stupid. Before he lets himself break apart for this man again.

But he wouldn’t trade it and maybe it’s selfish but they’re both here, still stuck in whatever this is… so at least he’s not alone. He takes a deep breath and lets his gloved hand slip into Patrick’s cold one, the stinging in his eyes fading at the sound of the small happy noise that escapes the back of Patrick’s throat at the contact.

They walk, not bothering to hurry enough to catch up with the rest of the crowd, even taking a right before the Café so they can take the long way around before they circle back to meet up with everyone there.

In a town this small it only buys them an extra ten minutes but it’s ten minutes of their hands clasped together inside the pocket of Patrick’s coat, the air cold enough that by the time they do reach the Café and untangle themselves neither one of them can feel their nose. 

When they walk inside and hang up their coats they only get a few knowing looks. Everyone’s caught up in the festive atmosphere of the room. There’s a few snickers and whispers and a bit of a celebratory feel laying thick over all the patrons. David doesn’t have to wait long to find out what’s happening because Ronnie’s stomping over to Patrick and handing him a crisp hundred. 

David’s eyes immediately search out Stevie and she looks somewhere between embarrassed and thrilled, Twyla beaming at her side with her hair still slightly mussed and lips definitely a bit more swollen than usual.

“Those two were going at it pretty hard when the town showed up after the walk around town. They clearly skipped out right after the show,” Ronnie says briskly, explaining the money Patrick just slipped into the back pocket of his Levi’s. 

David slips his fingers into the denim and pulls it right back out. “That’s okay Ronnie, drinks are on Brewer tonight then,” he says dodging Patrick’s attempt to grab the note from his fingers and prancing off to the counter to order, tossing a smirk back at Patrick over his shoulder. 

Most of the town clears out and heads home after the announcement of which storefront had the best decorations, the florist’s shop winning for the fifth year in a row. David’s crammed into a booth next to Patrick with Stevie and Twyla across for them, two mostly empty bottles of wine on the table between them. 

Patrick’s got his arm stretched over the back of the booth and David eyes that spot he fits so perfectly in, imagines Patrick’s solid and warm body nestled against his side and he’s almost wine drunk enough to lean in. Stevie wouldn’t fault him for it. Twyla either for that matter. 

He feels a tug on the back of the neck of his sweater, apparently staring blatantly enough that Patrick’s picked up on it. Patrick’s fingers brush across the back of his neck, a tickle, a tease, before pulling sharply again and clearly encouraging David to close the last few inches between them. 

He feels his face heat up immediately and fights the urge to tuck his face into Patrick’s neck. Instead he quickly snuggles into Patrick’s side, Patrick’s arm that was stretched out behind him falling around David’s waist and pulling him in closer. 

Stevie doesn’t say a word, doesn’t even send him a teasing look. She just smiles. She smiles at him, at them, and he knows, he _knows_ he wants this. These people in his life every day… this man in his bed every morning. But he has a life, one that’s creeping up like bile in his throat. He washes it back down with another sip of wine and focuses instead on where his body ends and Patrick’s begins. 

“So, what’s everyone doing for the rest of the evening?” Twyla asks, eyes twinkling over at Stevie. She probably would like to close up shop soon and finish whatever it was the entire town walked in on earlier. 

“David,” Patrick says suddenly, his voice clear and sure and then Stevie’s cackling and Twyla’s giggling.

David sits up abruptly in mock disgust but the hand Stevie and Twyla can’t see slips between Patirck’s legs, his palm resting high on the inside of Patrick’s thigh and giving it a squeeze. His other hand resting over his own heart, “well you seem far too sure of yourself Patrick Brewer.”

“Am I wrong?” he asks shifting so his thighs squeeze around David’s hand, his nonexistent eyebrows raising as if saying ‘your move’.

David smirks and slips his hand out and scoots gracefully out of the booth, watching Patrick’s face shift as he worries he may have overstepped, to scooting out of the booth himself. 

“Have a _really_ nice night boys,” Stevie drawls, her arm wrapping around Twyla’s shoulders and her signature smirk back firmly in place. 

“Best wishes to you both,” David fires back.

“Warmest regards.”

********

It’s not awkward as Patrick helps him out of his coat, as his deft fingers unloop the scarf from around his neck. Well, it’s awkward that they’d had to bundle back up to get from the Café to Patrick’s car and to Patrick’s apartment but it’s so cold outside it was as if they’d been trying to save the heat they’d created back in the booth… bottle it up and save it to make this process a little easier. 

So it’s not awkward but it’s heavy. It sits in David’s stomach like a boulder. A nice boulder, a potentially very sexy and satisfying boulder… but a heavy one nonetheless. 

There’s always a moment, right before they take each other to bed the first time during the holiday season that feels like he’s about to make a decision that’s going to change his life forever and this year is no different… well it _is_ different because he’s afraid he won’t be able to turn back this time. To leave again. 

His ungloved hands knock Patrick’s stupid toque off and it falls to the floor in a whisper and David’s skin meets Patrick’s for the first time in a year, his cheeks cool but warming under his finger tips. 

While Patrick had hung up David’s outerwear thoughtfully on the coat rack by the door, his own forms a trail starting with his hat and ending with his boots and socks at the end of his bed. 

David takes his time, his knees pressed back against the bed but unwilling to sit. His hands pull Patrick’s sweater from his jeans and over his head, taking the undershirt with it. 

His fingers trail up Patrick’s bare arms to his shoulders, his skin warm from being under so many layers but littered with goosebumps anyway. 

His lips touch Patrick for the first time this season when he runs them across the top of his shoulder, over his right clavicle and up his neck. He takes a moment to breathe him in, to let his hands get their fill of his shoulders. 

David sinks back into the mattress once they’re both fully undressed, no reason for their bodies to leave each other’s orbit for anything, Patrick’s body immediately following after him, pressing him in further.

Patrick worries a bruise just over David’s left nipple, his teeth and tongue unforgiving as they work across David’s chest. He knows Patrick loves his chest just as much as David loves Patrick’s shoulders. 

When David presses Patrick into the mattress he can’t seem to hold back his groan, Patrick’s legs immediately lifting to make room for David, grinning as his eyes scan across David’s face and eventually land on the still mostly straight hair now falling into David’s eyes. 

Patrick takes care of it though, brushes it back, their bodies warm enough that it stays. Then his hands are everywhere. Caressing up David’s rib cage, grazing over his ass and up his back… his eyes unmoving from David’s. 

It’s still so heavy. 

He opens Patrick up with his tongue and then his fingers before he finally presses in, Patrick taking him readily. 

He can’t look away, doesn’t want to look at anything other than the pleasure taking over Patrick’s face as he starts to move. Tiny puffs of air escaping Patrick’s mouth on every thrust, his neck craning in any attempt to connect their lips.

Their kisses are sloppy things, mostly passing gasps back and forth, grunts with the occasional graze of one's lip or the nip of someone’s teeth. 

Patrick comes with a shout, his head lifting to press his face into David’s neck and his fingers digging just the right side of painful into David’s shoulder blades and David’s coming right behind him. His eyes sting painfully and the boulder that he’s been carrying seems to dissipate, breaking between them as a few tears spill from his eyes. 

He’s _not_ crying when his eyes meet Patrick’s again and he’s definitely not shaking from the release of it all when Patrick pulls David’s full weight down on top of him. 

“Ask me again,” David whispers later, their bodies clean and the duvet wrapped around them as they’re wrapped around each other. 

Patrick’s invisible eyebrows knit together in sleepy confusion as he pulls back just enough to take in David’s face… as if he’ll find the full meaning of his statement written across his forehead.

Which he must’ve because he takes a deep breath and says, “Can I come with you?” 

David’s heart clenches in his chest and he cups the side of Patrick’s face with one hand and he shakes his head. “No.”

Patrick inhales sharply, opens his mouth probably ready for a fight but David shakes his head again, “Can I come back? Come back to stay?”

“David… god David _please,”_ Patrick mumbles, his voice thick and his hands gripping and pulling David, seemingly determined to press every inch of his skin into David’s and he goes willingly.

It’s what he should have said all those years ago and he’s not stupid enough to realize how goddamn lucky he is to get the chance to say it now. 

**Author's Note:**

> just because i feel like its important to say, i don't think smoking weed and immediately getting in a car is allowed in most places.
> 
> A big giant thank you to returntosaturn and NeelyO for all their help and incredible suggestions and edits.


End file.
